


of changing and of shifting shape

by TolkienGirl



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, Angst, Coping Mechanisms, Gen, Helcaraxë, Mental shenanigans, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 09:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: On the Helcaraxe, Fingon talks to Maedhros. In Angband, Maedhros talks to Fingon. It doesn't do either of them much good.





	of changing and of shifting shape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mythopoeia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythopoeia/gifts).



At first, the torments are as he expected. Pain, he was taught to endure. Shame, he can carry with pride. If he had to be a fool, he is glad that none of his brothers were fools with him. He is their eldest; it was he who swore the Oath before any of them.

At first, then, he prays.  _Please_ , he begs, whispering even in thought.  _Do not let them come for me._

Let Makalaurë be wiser than Manwë himself. Let him restrain hasty Tyelko, and furious Carnistir, and let Atarinkë join him in level counsel.

_Do not let them come for me._

It is the only prayer that the Valar answer.

 

His father’s face is calm. Findekáno does not mistake the look for peace.

“ _Atar_ ,” he says, and then, because what he is about to say is something no son ever should, “My lord.”

Ñolofinwë turns to him as one in a dream. “What is it? What would you have me do?”

“Nothing,” Findekáno whispers, for scarlet flames afar dance in the weary depths of his father’s eyes. “Nothing,” he says again, and regains his voice. “But I—I must follow. Ships or no.”

Ñolofinwë leans heavily on his sword. “How would you even accomplish it?” His cloak is clasped high about his neck, ready for sailing.

His father believed. They all did.

Findekáno answers, “We shall cross the Helcaraxë.”

(Later, his people will not blame him for that choice—though they should.)

  
  
“Think you that your brothers grieve? Why? Because you are the eldest, who comforted their sorrows once?” Like a thunderclap trapped in closed air, that voice shakes him, though it does not seem to shake anything else. Melkor, _who arises in might_ , and Moringotto, _black enemy_. “How long has it been since Curufinwë looked to you for wisdom, or Morifinwë for kindness? You are desperate, beautiful one. You rode out to meet me like an ill-spent arrow, against Makalaurë’s counsel.”

Maitimo bites his tongue, tasting yet another draught of blood. Moringotto smiles, a ribbon of light where teeth should be, if his face was anything like a true face at all. “See, I know all their names. I can read them in your memory—and for you your mother chose best and boldest, as if your beauty would last.”

The rough stones of the floor tear against his knees as he is dragged forward by an unseen force. He cannot catch himself on his hands, which are bound behind him.

One terrible gauntlet flickers in the white light of Moringotto’s stolen gems, coming to cradle Maitimo’s head in a mockery of tenderness.

 _A mockery_ , he thinks against his will, _of a father’s touch_.

(The Silmarilli swim before his eyes.)

Cold metal stings against his scalp, and he cries out. There are scrapes and gouges there, beneath the ragged remains of his hair.

“Ah,” Moringotto croons, “My children were ungentle when they cut away your crown. They are young, you understand, and the young are cruel.”

 

At first, they bear it bravely. There is little light here, but they carry torches. They carry flint. Their blood runs warm, does it not?

The first time one of his kin lies frozen, never to rise again, Findekáno believes that she is sleeping.

“Do not weep,” his father warns, as the women begin to keen. “Tears are a danger, here.”

Findekáno holds his youngest brother close. Their hearts beat still. He feels that flutter, _fëa_ and _hröa_. They have food, they have hope.

Don’t they have hope?

Everything is gray—first the sky, then the ice, then their own hands.

(He tries to remember the silver-specked color of his cousin’s eyes.)

 _I am coming,_ he promises, because forgiveness, too, can keep you warm. _I am coming, even if you wish I would not. Even though you burned the ships._

 

“You wonder why I have not torn them out and cast them to the vultures? It would please me, of course, to see you groping sightless on your belly. But you were blessed, Maitimo. You have your father’s eyes.” The room does shake, this time, with the horrible mirth of Moringotto’s voice. “And since he hides with cursed Mandos, I would see his suffering writ before me as close as can be matched.”

Maitimo no longer prays, but if he did, he would ask Eru himself to shield Atar’s eyes from what has become of his imperfect first-born, his heir.

Eru would surely scorn the prayer; Fëanáro scorned prayers of all kinds long ago.

“When you weep, it will be as if he weeps.”  A gnarled finger-guard drags across his cheek. “You have wept already. There are elven-tears beneath this blood.”

 

Fingers turn black with rot. The tips of ears flake away. Findekáno and Artanis—whose stomach is stronger than most—have the grisly task of chipping at frozen flesh and bone, in the hopes of saving the rest of the body.

(The bodies. There are so many.)

“Our people,” Ñolofinwë growls, “Are _dying_.” His lashes are white with frost.

Findekáno kneels at his feet, the ice gnawing at him. “Forgive me, father. This was my doing.” They are at the edge of their camp circle. They are running out of fuel. The fires flare pale yellow, barely enough to warm the children’s pinched faces.

(What children there are left.)

His father stares at him, all stormy calm, and then his proud face twists. “Do not blame yourself, my Káno,” he answers softly, and lifts him to his feet. The howling wind cannot take that firm voice away. “I would have led, if you did not. Did you forget that I have an almost-brother there, too?”

 

Though his eyes are left to him, they are almost swollen shut. The orcs have been at him for hours already—he knows not whether it is morning or night, whether the days outside have turned cold. A year might have passed here, fed by blood and stale bread, by dank water and despair. A year, or ten years.

His throbbing head makes him foolish. He drifts—is that Amil’s voice, calling them to a meal? Is that fresh linen drying in the breeze? Is that Makalaurë, bent over a sheet of parchment, the notes like raindrops on the page—

Such flights of thought make Moringotto angry. When he is angry, he smiles. “Had I your bard-brother here,” he murmurs, his voice like wind in the reeds, snapping the smooth blades backwards, “I would have torn his throat until he could sing no more. I would have cracked one by one his slender fingers, never again to draw forth golden music. You had nothing for me to ruin but your faultless face—no talent for me to steal. So tell me, well-formed one—are you not grateful that I chose _you_?”

From the shadows that cloak his throne, the bright-haired lieutenant stalks forward: a Maia, with the coldly beautiful features of Maitimo’s kin. One burning hand grips Maitimo’s right arm, unbound this time. A swift movement, and that wrist is pinned beneath Mairon’s boot, the delicate bones protesting.

Moringotto continues. “Imagine Tyelkormo blinded, or Morifinwë writhing at my feet. One twin only remains—should I have sent him after his brother in a thousand pieces? Or ought I to have rendered him in ash, as your father did to the other, unwitting on the shores of Losgar?” 

The lieutenant’s boot crunches first over one of Maitimo’s fingers, then another. Maitimo nearly faints in the white flash of pain, nearly floats far from the sound that rushes from his raw throat.

“Are you not grateful that I chose you?”

He cannot bear the pain again. He snatches back his injured hand when Mairon releases it and holds it against his chest. This does not ease the roar of anguish, but at least he has guarded the remaining three fingers from the press of that leaden foot. The lieutenant grasps him by his hair to rebuke him for moving, for disobeying, but Moringotto waves the wrong aside. Moringotto will have his answer. 

“I asked, oh fair-of-face, if you were _grateful_.”

“Yes,” he rasps, through lips that are split up and down as if sewn with dripping stitches. “Yes.”

The Vala laughs, and like all things, the sound is absence, the hollowed-out shape of hopelessness in the vast dark room. “I see your thoughts in that once-pretty head of yours,” Moringotto says, “and I see that you are lying.” He leans forward on his throne, his gaze slithering downwards, wrapping Maitimo in its coils. Even Mairon turns aside.

“Another fine reason to let you keep your eyes,” Moringotto muses. “For you tell the truth in them, like or not.”

 

He must not think of his brothers, then. He should suffer this well, borne up on the wings of his earlier prayer, but he cannot. He cannot think of them here, wracked by torment, but nor can he think of them in safety, because he has no gratitude left in his heart.  _That_  the Vala saw at once, tearing at the thin veil of a weak lie. Maitimo is not strong like his father, who shut the doors of heart and home before Moringotto’s cunning and wrath alike.

Maitimo, in spirit and in body, is no longer Maitimo at all.

 

Rarely now do they sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Sleep slows the workings of the _hröa_ too much; those who slumber deeply do not wake in the mist-drenched mornings.

Elenwë falls into such a sleep, and Turukáno cannot revive her. Findekáno reminds himself that tears will ruin them, and holds his grief-stricken brother close, muffling his sobs against the warmth of his bared neck.

 _Grief._ It covers them like a bank of clouds, like an endless cloak.

Írissë looks at Findekáno across a fire that is scarcely a heap of coals. His teasing sister, gone silent and still.

 _We are all going to die here_ , her eyes say, and Findekáno has no words, no music to tell her elsewise.

But that night, the moon rises pale and pure, and the people sing for the first time since that long-ago first death.

 

He tries to call himself Russandol. And that is where it begins—those dangerous thoughts and hopes. Findekáno is not known to Moringotto—or if he is, he does not stir the Vala’s interest. For Moringotto, Finwë’s house is a line that leads to Fëanáro and Fëanáro’s works, both of life and light. Findekáno is safe, Russandol tells himself.

At least for the time being.

The floor of his cell is the same rough stone as the throne-room. Even were he in a state to seek comfort, none could be found. Russandol sits hunched forward, careful of his twisted fingers, wrapping them in what rags are permitted him for bedding and clothing. On days when his back is less sore than others, he leans against the cold wall.

He does not know why he is given rags at all—foul though they are, it seems too much like kindness.

Later, he learns that giving is only done so that more may be taken.

 

He shuts his eyes and covers them with his hands. _Maitimo_ , he says in thought. _I miss you, you faithless bastard_. How little would his fair cousin be suited to this barren hell! Maitimo with flames in his hair, with his dancing eyes, with the same golden warmth that all of Fëanáro’s sons wear carelessly. It radiates from his very fingertips.

 _If you were here_ , Findekáno thinks, and there is no pretending that the thought is anything but fond— _If you were here, we would all gather round_ you _._

 

 _Findekáno_ , he whispers in his mind, when he feels truly alone—when there is no trickle of prying pressure there from the Vala and his lieutenant (at least, not one he can detect).

In the blackness, he half-fancies he can see the glint of gold threaded through dark braids. The shy smile, the clear eyes.

_Where are you hiding, Russandol? I am no longer a child from whom you should flee. Carnistir and Tyelko and I are not dogging your steps and keeping you from your studies. Russandol!_

_I am here_ , he answers, and is mercifully indistinct about where  _here_  may even be. Perhaps it is the waterfall by which they camped once, he and Findekáno and Makalaurë—and oh, he swore not to think of his brothers.

Forget, then, the velvet of Makalaure’s harp, twining with the silver mist and spray.

Forget the bright banner of their mingled laughter, as night drew in.

 

 _Arakáno is dead_ , Findekáno tells the memory, the glow, the thought. _Arakáno is dead, and I cannot even weep for him._

 _I am so sorry_ , Maitimo answers him, his beautiful face as grieved as Findekáno has ever seen it. _For this, and for all your losses. For this, and for leaving you behind._

 

Sometimes, Findekáno is grave. His brow lowers like Ñolofinwë’s, and he sits across from Russandol, staring down at the rough stone.  _You left us,_  he mutters, and Russandol is too weary and too ashamed to answer.  _You sent back no ships._

 _And you returned to Tirion_ , Russandol says at last, for that is what he wishes to believe.  _You returned to Tirion, and you curse my name._

 _What name is that, Maitimo?_ Findekáno asks, and lifts his head to smile. There is a ribbon of light where his teeth should be.

 

 _Findekáno._ Moringotto savors the name, turning from his forge to his anvil, over which Russandol is bound by chains.  _The cousin. Ñolofinwë’s son. Ah, Ñolofinwë—there is a heart I would slice open to its very chambers._

He is not even speaking aloud. His thoughts are tangled in Russandol’s thoughts, a stabbing reminder that they have always been.

Russandol cannot even move, within or without. Black hands pin him by his lungs and his pulse, hands he cannot see.

 _The defiance of sons, then._ Moringotto’s eyes are like the edge of light—bright in a way that only shows how deep the darkness lies.  _You treat each other more like brothers than your fathers ever did._

Russandol’s thoughts ache. He did not know, until now, that thoughts _could_ ache.

_Did you know that he followed you?_

Dread. His heart twists with dread in his useless chest.

 _They crossed the Helcaraxë_ , Moringotto tells him. Gives him that information, like another kindness.  _I know its cruelty. It was not made for living things to walk—nay, not for flesh and blood. But for you, he would risk all. That_ , Moringotto adds, as his gauntlet slices through the chains, through the rags beneath, through Russandol’s flesh,  _is just what I would expect of Ñolofinwë’s second heart. And like your father before you, what thanks have you to offer your kin?_

 

They reach the other side. The people do not sing, but they look towards their king, their princes, with pride on their faces.

They are not the same people who stepped out on the ice. Some of them are gone; all of them are changed.

( _Are you changed, cousin? How can you be? Even when your hands were bright with our people’s blood, I knew you._ )

 

Russandol wakes, gasping, and is certain he has died.

 _Almost_ , Moringotto tells him.  _Almost, but your fëa lingered. Not from its own strength, of course, but from the grace of my generosity._ His eyes shutter: disinterest, at last. A look that Russandol recognizes—the look of a craftsman who casts aside misshapen metal.

( _Please_ , he begs,  _let Atar’s gaze be shielded_ —and he must have forgotten that he no longer prays.)

 _You disappoint me_ , Moringotto says softly.  _You are soft straight through—no ambition for greatness, and indeed, no greatness at all. Your father only gave you his eyes._

He turns away from the anvil, from Russandol’s rent flesh and wasted blood. To Mairon, glimmering in the shadows, Moringotto says,  _Hang him from the peaks. Mayhap his father will turn his sight hence. If not..._  He looks, for the last time, on the body that is Maitimo no longer.  _I have no further use for him._

 

They arrive with vengeance, they beat at the doors of Angamando, they unfurl their frozen banners in the golden sunlight. They thunder, thunder, thunder towards their flint-fingered kin.

They arrive with vengeance, and find that the King has been slain.

Findekáno’s rage—such as it has ever been—drains from him like melted snow dashed down the mountains by spring.

 _Uncle_ , he thinks, and his eyes flash to his father, who bears the news like a crown: shoulders back, brow set, gaze like war.

“Slain?” There is no weakness, even, in Ñolofinwë’s voice. No weakness, but Findekáno does not mistake that for lack of grief.

“Our losses were heavy,” Makalaurë says. He has greeted them like strangers, and there is a circlet of delicate make ringed about his brow.

Findekáno steps forward. The ice seems to rise up behind him, gnashing its merciless fangs. They came here to find Fëanáro dead, and his sons with no explanation for Losgar? For the fallen? For the future?

He means to ask all these things, but instead he demands, “Where is Maitimo?”

His cousins are silent. He does not understand the answer in their silver-specked eyes.

“Where is Maitimo?” he says again, and then his father-lord’s hand is on his shoulder, for these are no longer their kin but their betrayers. Findekáno says, “I would speak with him, and demand an accounting from him as well.” His voice is trembling. Findekáno the Valiant, always following even when he tries to lead.

Makalaurë turns his face away in grief. Tyelko looks carven in stone; Carnistir the same. The Ambarussa are nowhere to be seen.

It is his least favorite cousin who speaks, Atarinkë, who looks like dead Fëanáro so much that even Ñolofinwë’s breath seems to catch in his throat when he steps forward. Atarinkë lifts his blade-sharp jaw and says only, “We consider him dead.”

 

He does not know how long he has hung thus, in pain and stillness. The wind rakes like a spear, like a thousand spears. He does not know if he is living, or if this is the torment due failed souls.

His is a failed soul, is it not? His are not prayers meant to be answered.

It has been a year, or ten years, or many times ten years—he does not know. He does not think of his brothers except for the way his heart still beats, buried in a chest that is more like a cage than a living thing.

There is no gold here, so why does he see gold-threaded braids? There is no music, so why does he hear a voice uplifted?

He does not know.


End file.
